Dragonshard

[Dreamer128]

(Source: http://pc.ign.com/articles/537/537185p3.html ) - Check for Screenshots.

The intersection of PC gamers and pen and paper roleplaying gamers is quite large. There's hardly an editor here at IGN who hasn't at some point in their meager little lives sampled the goodness to be found in a lengthy session of Dungeons and Dragons. And while the franchise has been mined for some spectacular RPG titles, almost no effort has been made to bring the series to other genres. All that's changing now thanks to Liquid Entertainment's upcoming real-time strategy game, Dragonshard.

But though the game is taking D&D to a new place, it's maintaining the flavor of the brand by focusing on its key strengths. Class-based characters, dungeon crawling, classic monsters and a host of traps and treasures will all combine to create a thoroughly familiar but novel experience. Liquid was criticized for the slightly generic nature of their recent Lord of the Rings game, so they're understandably anxious to include as much Dungeons and Dragons flavor as they can this time around.

We recently met with Liquid's president Ed Del Castillo, game designer Jason Torres and Atari's producer Frank Gilson. They showed off a relatively early (but surprisingly complete) build of the game down at their offices. From what we've seen, the game is breaking out of the traditional RTS model while also holding tight to what makes the world of D&D so compelling for so many gamers.

The game is set in the brand new campaign setting of Eberron. For those who don't know the history of Eberron involves three dragons -- one good, one neutral and one evil. Long ago a terrible battle between the good and evil dragons resulted in the creation of the world. The neutral dragon formed the land of Eberron, the evil dragon became the underworld below it and the good dragon took the form of countless dragonshards that circle in a giant ring above the world of Eberron. Every once in a while one of these magical shards falls to Eberron.

The various groups that inhabit Eberron are understandably hot to gain control of the largest of these shards, the Heart of Syberis. That's the basic conflict of the world and the four campaigns will each focus on the crusade for these shards. Each of the four playable races has a unique motivation for wanting the shards. The Umbragen, the game's magical dark elves, are trying to use the shards to reclaim their city. The city itself sank below the surface during a cataclysm. Some elves stayed and became dark elves. Some threat eventually pushed the Umbragen out. Lots of this backstory will be revealed as players discover the origin and identity of the objects located in the game.

Gamers will also be able to lead units of The Order of the Silver Flame, an alliance of humans and dwarves. They're fairly cosmopolitan, representing a variety of people, all united by their quest to destroy the large dragonshard. Though they have some surprises, the Silver Flame units are drawn from traditional fantasy an include wizards, knights and thieves. There are two other playable groups in the game but Liquid's keeping them under wraps for now. They have said that they'll be familiar to fans of the franchise.

Though some will undoubtedly argue with me on this, the most essential thing about D&D is the character class system. The abilities of the varied archetypes of paladin, rogue, wizard and so forth are rendered in Dragonshard even if things like ability scores and alignment aren't. While these heroes can be used as individual combatants, they're not like the tide-turning heroes in Warcraft 3. The heroes of this game share certain abilities with the squad of rank and file units they lead.

Much like Kohan or games from the Total War series, you'll command the regular cavalry, infantry and archers of Dragonshard in groups. While the groups don't have to have a hero leader, assigning a hero to a squad multiplies the power of the squad and the power of the hero substantially. A paladin teamed with a squad of knights grants massive charge bonuses while a cleric at the head of a group of archers allows the individual soldiers of the unit to heal themselves. Putting a ranger with that same group gives them fire arrows.

There's a difference between a hero's D&D powers and their practical benefit to squads. The lone rogue makes an excellent scout, sneaking about the map and stealing items as he finds them. In battle, however, the rogue can hide his squad and outflank his enemies. Units led by rogues also gain a damage bonus when attacking units that aren't attacking them back. In some cases, you'll want to use heroes individually. You may get more out of using a lone magic user in an artillery role than by placing him with a group of archers.

Squads are single targets so you won't be able to focus all your archers on the cleric leading (and healing) the enemy squad. Instead, the type of casualties inflicted will be out of your hands. This seems to reduce some of the micromanagement of battles. Some gamers will complain, but it worked in Kohan and Total War so it seems promising enough here.

As your heroes and squads partake in combat, they'll contribute experience to a large common pool. You can use this pool to level up individual heroes or a certain type of unit. Units of higher levels get higher attack modifiers and more hit dice overall. In a departure from the D&D formula, hitting is not determined by probability here; all attack modifiers merely cause the unit to inflict more damage. And though you'll have to pay to bring heroes back from the dead, they come back at whatever level they were at when they died.

Heroes can gain even more experience by finding caves and holes that give them access to the subterranean layer. Here they'll find the sunken city of the Elves and confront the terrors that drove the Umbragen out. Since only heroes can go down here, you'll find the underground portions of each map play more like Baldur's Gate or Dungeon Siege. (You can switch between the lower and upper layers by tapping the space bar and each layer has a mini-map on your HUD.)

The stony streets and crumbled buildings still hint at the former glory of the city. One of the interesting things about Eberron is that it's been designed with an eye towards the practical application of magic. You'll find therefore that huge castles are carved of a single block of stone or that magical lanterns serve as streetlights. You'll find traces of this kind of magic below ground. One room even had a giant, shattered dome that acted as a gateway for flying units to transition from the upper to lower levels.

It's bad enough that the sunken city falls apart as you explore it but you'll also find outright traps set for you. Try not to look surprised then when a dozen boulders come rolling down the long hallway you're crossing or if the walls suddenly clash together as you pass through a narrow room. If you're crafty, you'll spot these traps before you spring them. If you're especially devious, you'll find someway to reset them so they spring on your enemy when he walks by.

But there are plenty of other terrors down there besides traps and enemy soldiers. The underground levels contain lots of third-party monsters that will attack on sight. Some of the monsters even spring from traps. Imagine large stone statues coming to life and attacking your party, or walking too close to a large pentagram and having a giant demon appear before you. Gelatinous Cubes will suck in your heroes and, if the Cube's not dispatched quickly enough, will eventually kill them.

While most of the monsters are of the "crush, smash variety," there is a bit of sophistication to be found. The two-headed Ettin has two clubs and can attack two separate targets at once. He's nothing, though, compared to the beholder. This guy has a number of eyestalks, each capable of striking a target. Best take this guy from one side; if he brings all his eyes to bear on your party, he can do a lot of damage.

Managing both these layers is a big job, so the Liquid team has written an entirely new engine and added plenty of new effects. Fog layers rest in corners of the underground city and grass blows with the wind. One of the coolest new effects is hyper-terrain. This basically overlays certain terrain with a deformable layer. Add a sand or snow texture and you've got terrain that the troops can leave footprints in. You can use these tracks to spot enemy movements. What makes it even cooler is that freshly falling snow will eventually obscure the tracks.

The art style for all of Liquid's games has been great and the attention to small, ambient details has been just phenomenal. Dragonshard carries this tradition forward. The forest setting comes complete with leaves spiraling down to ripple in still pools. Shafts of bright sunlight illuminate water dripping from the leaves in the canopy. Waterfalls run down mountains and even link up with waterfalls and lakes in the underground level. Nice touch! Each of the levels, from the marshes to the snowy mountain passes to the deserts to the plains have these types of effects.

You'll even see these touches downstairs. The skeleton of a previous adventurer lies on the floor reaching towards a key. When you notice that the poor guy's ankle is chained to a post, it really sparks the imagination. These little bits of story and atmosphere really contribute to the overall effect here.

In addition to looking pretty, some of the environmental objects are practical. They're called Places of Power and ownership of them grants you a number of bonuses. Ownership of the Places of Power is so important, in fact, that they'll almost always become points of contention. Having a fountain that heals your units has an obvious and immediate benefit as is having a Throne of Power that increases the maximum size of your squads. There's a difference between totems, which grants a constant bonus, and glyphs, which grant a one-time bonus. Still, when that bonus allows you to take a spell with a specific target and cast it globally, one use is plenty.

As if you didn't have enough problems with the dark elves and beholders and smashing walls, you'll also need to build and manage a city to produce all your units. Thankfully the game doesn't ask you to micromanage things. For one thing, there are only two resources in the game, gold found underground, and dragonshards found on the surface.

Most towns are fairly well-defended; all cities automatically get a palisade that can be upgraded later for a fee. City centers are also the most defended part of a city. All the buildings are laid out on a grid and your enemies will have to attack the walls and the intervening structures before taking on your city center.

Since everything's laid out on a grid, certain buildings will be next to each other. In most RTS games this has basically no effect. In Dragonshard buildings will gain bonuses based on which buildings they're next to. Put a smith near your barracks and troops produced at that particular barracks will have an increased armor class. Put your cleric-training Place of Ancients near your Mage Guild and all units produced there will get a boost to spell energy. Since the potential combinations are so massive, you'll have to choose your city layout carefully.

The team has learned lots about AI from their experiences with Battle Realms. That game was simply too vicious because of its unlimited efficiency. Where human players are limited in terms of speed and attention, Battle Realms AI was able to make lots of immediate decisions based on an awareness of the entire map. The AI in Dragonshard will actually have a moving zone of attention and will only issue orders based on things it sees firsthand. You can actually psyche out the AI this way and come up with feints that actually work. If the AI is pre-occupied with defending a certain section of its base, it may not even notice that you're assaulting a distant scouting party.

The AI will scale itself based on your performance. It will know what you've built for instance and will send out small groups of units so you can get a sense of what beats what. If your units are particularly susceptible to attack by archers, for instance, the AI will send a few archers your way to make that weakness more apparent. If will sometimes send out units that have a weakness against the units you've built. This helps you get a feel for what works best against both your own and your enemy's units. The AI will also hold back if you haven't explored much of the map or kick into high gear if you're way ahead.

The team isn't saying too much about multiplayer just yet. They have committed to eight player support and have hinted at some interesting modes. Some may take the form of a race through a maze of monsters or a contest to see who can collect the most loot in a given amount of time. More interestingly, the team is hoping to add cooperative campaign play in an upcoming (but unannounced) expansion. You may be able to bring the heroes you've built in the single-player game into multiplayer.

The game's due out next year and, based on what we've seen so far, we simply can't wait to get our hands on this one.